GHOSTS.. OF THE CIVIL DEAD

THE.. OFFICIAL SITE

GHOSTS... OF THE CIVIL DEAD
is the story of a modem Maximum Security Prison. It has
been extensively researched and is firmly based on actual
events that have occurred in prisons in America and
Australia in recent years.
It is the first feature film of talented young filmmakers,
Writer/Director John Hillcoat and Writer/Producer Evan
English. It is the product of an 'aberration' in the film
financing scenario in that English and Hillcoat exercise
complete economic and creative control.

They elect not to pull a single punch.

The result is a film whose power has literally stunned
audiences the world wide. It is an extremely tense,
sometimes harrowing, drama that has a potent political
intent.

"Brilliant film, brilliant filmmaking"

Heinz Badewitz, Director, Hof Film Festival

"A tour de force"

Bill Pense, Director, Telluride Film Festival

"The most powerful film ever made in Australia"

Andrew Urban, Melbourne "Age"

"Ambitious. confronting first feature"

David Stratton, "Variety"

It is to be presented officially for the first time at the
Venice Film Festival in Critics Week and will make other
selected Festival appearances before being released to the
public in Europe in December 1988 and in America, Australia
and Japan early in 1989.

"GHOSTS.. .Of The Civil Dead" flies right in the face of
the prevailing political climate, a climate the filmmakers
see as one of increasing and insidious repression. It is a
daring and courageous first film, one of all too rare
idealism.

"GHOSTS... Of The Civil Dead" is the story of Central
Industrial Prison. Central Industrial sits in the middle of
a desert. It is the highest level of security the prison
system of our mythical country contains.

The film begins at the end. Central Industrial Prison has
been "locked down" (meaning that a state of emergency has
been declared and all inmates are indefinitely confined to
their cells and all privileges have been withdrawn)
"following the latest wave of violence that has plagued
this institution for years:' A "Committee" has been
appointed to report on its causes. The film, like the
Committee, flashes back to trace the events that have led
to the lockdown.

Three self-contained "housing units" representing the three
levels of security in the prison, are the locations for the
film. These housing units are triangular in design, are
colour-coded in play school yellows and gentle bathroom
violets. The inmates wear vivid blue and bright orange
uniforms. Officers observe from Observation Booths and
Control Rooms. This is a "New Generation" facility -
"dedicated to the goal of humane containment:' It is New
Generation facilities that are in 1988 being constructed by
governments in the western world.

Inmate Wenzil 870411-112. is new to this prison. He is
admitted to the supermarket-style, drugged-out 'prison
paradise' that is the General Population unit. Within this
unit inmates have freedom of movement. They watch a lot of
TV, take a lot of drugs, and have a black market in food.
sex. tattoos, drugs, electrical goods. They are totally
submerged in junk culture. No one cares about the flaunting
of the law because it keeps the environment relatively
stable and without threat.

Correctional Officer David B. Yale 1633. works in
Administrative Segregation. These "high risk" inmates have
very limited movement. Inmates are taken once a day. one at
a time, for an hour under heavy escort to recreation, and
that's it. They sit in their cells the rest of the time and
read and write and conspire. There is intelligence in this
unit - a sense that these inmates are dangerous for
different reasons. They hate the Guards and the Guards hate
them; there is no collusion and no co-operation. Just an
ever present sense of anger and tension, of war.

Inmate Glover 30281-160. is confined to the punishment
unit, to Solitary Confinement. Inmates are sent here to
learn to adjust to institutional life. Glover tells his
story:

"I was 16 when they put me in prison.Emotionally I'm
still 16.Prison is the only world I've ever known.All my
dreams are dreams of violence."

Things begin to happen:
Inmates' personal property is destroyed. a cage to exercise
is built, a screaming maniacal psycho (Maynard played by
Nick Cave) is placed within the Administrative Segregation
unit. Yale starts to realise: "It was like the
Administration was trying to get something to happen. But I
couldn't figure out why:' Yale becomes privy to the plot of
deliberately provoking the inmates to create murder.

In General Population, the drug supply and the power to the
prison televisions are suddenly and dramatically cut off.
This former prison paradise gets nasty. Wenzil. who has had
his eagerness to carve a niche in the prisoner hierarchy
thoroughly exploited, sits alone in his cell. humbled.
stewing, becoming progressively uglier and more hateful. We
watch him turn into a killer.

In Administrative Segregation inmates kill an officer after
prolonged harassment, in General Population they kill each
other over drugs and TV.

Yale is suspended from active duty for "spreading rumours:'
A formerly docile inmate attacks and murders an Officer.
Officers, under threat of their lives and believing their
authority has been undermined. hang an inmate. Wenzil kills
the first target he can find - the prison 'queen; Lilly.
The prison is placed on lockdown status. The Television
comes to report the 'facts'.

The film is about the fact that prison further criminalises
its inhabitants. It is about the way in which the system.
upon which our society is based. has the capacity to
exploit events that should be an indictment of it. Further.
it is about the fact that our system now deliberately
creates those events in order to exploit them.

The Committee appointed to report. dismissing the evidence
of former officer Yale, recommends that a new "super
maximum" security prison immediately begin construction. A
corridor painted pastel blue. We think that we are still
within the walls of our modern prison, but we are not. This
is the "free world" The free world looks like a prison and
the prison world looks like a modern shopping complex. In
the free world is Wenzil. Wenzil, known killer, has been
released to fail.

G.O.T.C.D. is ultimately about methods of social control:
Fear; Criminal; Research; Government; Drugs; Guards;
Police; Military; Media. It is about the organisation of
our society.